530 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. 26, 1912 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. S. J. Gibson, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCE — Forf.st and Stream is the 
recognized medium of entertainment, instruction and in¬ 
formation between American sportsmen. The editors 
invite communications on the subjects to which its pages 
are devoted, but, of course, are not responsible for the 
views of correspondents. Anonymous communications 
cannot be regarded. 
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THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
GOLFERS AND THE BIRDS. 
The annual money loss to the country 
through the damage inflicted by insect pests 
amounts to billions of dollars. Garden crops, 
grain crops and timber crops suffer alike. 
The trees are especially liable to insect at¬ 
tacks. In New England the larvae of a beetle 
are destroying the hickory trees in alarming 
numbers. There is a bark beetle which kills the 
hemlocks, another which has its home in the red 
cedar and still another that is most destructive 
to certain species of pine. 
The enormous economic value rendered and 
to be rendered to the United States by the Audu¬ 
bon Societies—which by preserving the birds 
which feed on insects are reducing this annual 
loss—is only just beginning to be appreciated by 
the public. Last summer the newspapers had much 
to say about the damage to lawns, and especially 
to golf links by the white grub, the larva of the 
May beetles, or June bugs. These lay their eggs 
in the soil. The larvae feed on the roots of the 
grass and the grass dies. 
These larvae before they go deeply into the 
ground to pupate, live close to the grass roots 
and are the food of a number of birds; crows, 
certain woodpeckers, and above all of the star¬ 
ling. 
We recall an admirable lawn formerly in 
the middle of the New York city—in what was 
once Audubon Park—which was long the breed¬ 
ing place of June bugs in great numbers. All 
through the early summer the adult June bugs 
were so abundant as to cause great trouble at 
night by flying into the houses and annoying the 
occupants. 
At length, not so very many years ago, a 
flock of starlings took possession of the spire of 
the old church nearby, and for years thereafter, 
during the summer, this lawn was their favorite 
feeding ground. In little companies they walked 
over it, industriously probing the soil and feed¬ 
ing on insects, and in a year or two the plague 
of June bugs ceased. 
While it is true that no starlings were killed 
and examined to see whether they actually ate 
the white grubs, it was the opinion of ornitholo¬ 
gists that there was a direct connection between 
the arrival of the starlings and the disappear¬ 
ance of the beetles. 
The lawns in the Botanical Garden in New 
York suffered greatly during the past summer 
and many efforts were made to reduce the dam¬ 
age which was being done. 
In the birds we have a special set of unpaid 
insect killers working all the time — weekdays, 
Sundays and holidays and summer and winter— 
to reduce the number of harmful insects which 
prey on vegetation. It is worth the while of 
every good citizen to strive to impress on his 
neighbors and his children the value to the coun¬ 
try of the birds. 
DRUMMING OF THE RUFFED GROUSE. 
Few subjects have been so much discussed 
by sportsmen as the whistle of the woodcock 
and the drumming of the ruffed grouse. To the 
latter sound much mystery has always attached. 
The dull roll of thunder comes out of the air 
from a distance in the depth of the forest, and 
excites the wonder of the listener, but its direc¬ 
tion and its distance seem so uncertain that he 
is not likely to try to find it. Few persons have 
seen the bird in the act of drumming, and of 
those few a still smaller number have been 
trained to observe the ways of nature or to 
draw just conclusions from what they may have 
seen. Nevertheless, many .people—some observers 
and some more theorists—have expounded their 
views on the subject. It has been declared that 
the grouse drums by beating his wings against 
the object on which he stands, against his own 
body, or against each other above the back; but 
none of these have satisfied all the conditions, 
and all are to be rejected. The best descriptions 
of the drumming ever given is that by William 
Brewster, printed in the old American Sports¬ 
man, in 1874, and the still earlier one of Audu¬ 
bon in his “Birds of America.” 
In 1905, however, Prof. C. F. Hodge, of 
Clarke University, carried on a series of obser¬ 
vations on his domesticated ruffed grouse which 
point to another explanation, and which, illus¬ 
trated by a multitude of photographs, appear to 
show that the sound is made by the rapidly re¬ 
peated blows of the stiff wing quills against the 
erected and expanded feathers of the side, which 
thus form a feather cushion. Professor Hodge 
says: “In fact, the sound, so far as quality goes, 
can be best imitated by striking with a wing 
properly stretched or even a concave fan on an 
extremely light eiderdown cushion.” Professor 
Hodge conjectures, too, that the bird while drum¬ 
ming fills the air sac of the breast and abdomen. 
“In this way the contour surfaces of the strong 
wing supports along the sides are made to in¬ 
close a large cavity filled with air, and this acts 
like the resonance chamber of a drum, and yields 
the booming throb to the air.” 
Many ornithologists, judging by analogy 
from the habits of other grouse, have conjec¬ 
tured that the air sac at the sides of the neck 
had some—as yet entirely undetermined—-relation 
to the drumming of the grouse. This, of course, 
remains to be proved. 
Certainly no one has ever had such ample 
opportunity for studying and recording by pho¬ 
tography the drumming of the ruffed grouse as 
had Professor Hodge, who, in two days, took no 
less than forty photographs of the bird in action, 
and his'account must be regarded as the most 
important contribution ever made to the subject. 
Professor Hodge believes, as has long been 
agreed, that the drumming of the ruffed grouse 
is a mating call. The fact that the bird drums 
in autumn is no valid objection to this conclu¬ 
sion, since many birds produce in autumn sounds 
which we are accustomed to regard as peculiar 
to the breeding season, though such sounds are 
often or usually made by young birds. 
NON-EXPORT GAME LAWS. 
There are in this country two systems of 
non-export game laws. One permits the taking 
out of a limited amount of game, accompanied 
by the owner. The other prohibits exportation 
altogether. In the practice of those States where 
the first system prevails, experience has demon¬ 
strated that the modified restriction is quite suf¬ 
ficient to accomplish the purpose of the statute, 
which is to cut off the marketing of game. This 
being insured, the game carried home by the 
visiting sportsman is not in such quantity as to 
be a factor in the problem of protection. This 
is only another way of saying that absolute pro¬ 
hibition is not essential. Game may be and is 
protected without it. The deprivation it imposes 
upon the non-resident sportsman has no good 
reason. The law would accomplish the purpose 
without it. This is the consideration which ren¬ 
ders the law so obnoxious. If absolute prohibi¬ 
tion of export were essential to game preserva¬ 
tion, the sportsman who is deprived of the satis¬ 
faction of carrying his birds home to his family 
could not complain. 
Since this absolute prohibition of export is 
not necessary, and since it works hardship by the 
deprivation of privileges which might reasonably 
be accorded to the visiting sportsman, the law 
should be amended. 
These laws as they stand now are in con¬ 
flict with the' interests not only of the visiting- 
sportsman, but of the transportation companies 
which get revenue from the sportsmen’s travel 
and of hotels and camps which entertain sports¬ 
men. Their repeal would be “good business.” 
THE BULL MOOSE. 
This week’s cover was reproduced from an 
original drawing made especially for us by that 
famous animal artist, Carl Rungius. A limited 
number of copies done in artotype, handsomely 
printed on a heavy 22 by 28-inch plate board, 
may be purchased by those desiring them. The 
price is three dollars. Framed, this picture, 
which is 13 by 19 inches, makes an ideal decora¬ 
tion for den, library or gun room. The early 
checks get the moose. 
Forest and Stream’s work meets with the 
cordial approbation of those who are in a posi¬ 
tion to judge of the efficiency of its labors in 
behalf of better sportsmanship. 
